FanFic: Team Aven Escapades: Episode 1, The Roget Foundation

[AvenPhoenix]

.......erased

[Sgt_Shligger]

Well, I've gotten into the middle of Chapter three and I'll give you a few suggestions.

1. In the future, don't bother centering every line. It makes the text difficult to read. This seems to be like a television/movie/drama script. Character names are usually capitalized, stage directions (actions, visuals, and other things that can't be conveyed by words) should be italicized. If you're having a lot of text without dialogue, something like a fight scene, a character description, a scene change, et cetera. Here's an example:

[spoiler-box]
JAM: [confused] I'm not sure I understand.
GEORGE groans, stands up and pulls out his pen: It's really not that complicated. [He grabs a notebook off a nearby table]. Come over here and I'll show you one more time.

George starts to draw notes and diagrams onto the paper, explaining the purpose of each and every mark. Jam nods in response but isn't grasping everything. George notices and, after finishing, sighs.

GEORGE tears out the sheet of paper and hands it to JAM: Here, I can't make it any simpler for you.
JAM: [Flustered] T-thanks. . .
GEORGE: Just don't make any mistakes.
JAM: Can do! Er, can not do!
GEORGE: Just get going.

Jam leaves through the door.
[/spoiler-box]

That's probably not good writing or perfect formatting but it's much easier to read, makes a lot more sense, and gives you a general idea of what I'm talking about. The big thing is separating dialogue from non-dialogue. If you want to make certain stage directions or visuals spoke by a "narrator" or any other disembodied voice of sorts, I'd suggest putting things he/she/it says in bold text so it becomes fairly obvious. Alternatively, you could just let the narrator talk as a normal character (so just type Narrator in CAPITAL LETTERS. )

I'll chat about the actual story aspect now. I really didn't like how convenient everything was from the stories beginning. The conditions of Ultra's body/brain transplant seemed too sudden. Going into Aven's mission with John the night or so before would've been nice. A lot of things seemed to happen really fast at the start. The only other issue is how many chapters you posted at once. It's a semi-daunting task to read all of those at once.

Maybe wait for another critique or two and keep going. And remember, writing is rewriting. Don't be afraid to go back and look over things.

[Sgt_Shligger]

On 2008-01-08 02:21, AvenPhoenix wrote:
Actually, I agree with you on everything there. I never really did like the begining. I've written Hundreds of pages (including this episode and the several ones after it), and it moves at a fair pace, but I've always had that quick, out-of-the-blue starting looming over me. I went back and changed it several times, but as you've noticed it's still fast. You see, my story is suppose to follow the short story my brother was writing. But we/he kinda gave up on that.

I hadn't considered having a narrorator, however. That's a pretty well idea. You're suggestion about having the speaking in bold is actually what I did in the first chapter, as you can see, but the work it took to go through and HTML code it was... disturbing... On Microsoft word it's all bold, and all the narration is in italics, and it looks just generally nicer. Even the centering looks good on Word.

I dunno if, due to size of my work, I'll have the time to realistically code everything perfectly, or add a narrorator at this point (I've already gone through and made so many silmilar changes that it has driven me crazy), but I'll definetly stop centering since it DOES look worse in the posting than on Word. And in furture episodes I haven't written I'll play around with the idea of a narrorator for a bit. If I like it enough I'll revise my already written episodes with him as well.



I'm not saying add a narrator, I'm just saying it sounds like a narrator is speaking at times. It really depends on what this is supposed to sound like.